Drowned Lives

31

We manoeuvred Godfrey into the front seat of the Escort, and I managed to figure out how to fold the wheelchair so that it could fit into the boot, with the old man giving instructions over his shoulder.

‘The handles fold back if you pull those little rods — that’s right. Now lift the foot rests back and fold the seat up. Wonderful.’

The drive took us away from the Mersey estuary, with a short run down the M53 until we came off near Chester. The hills of North Wales were visible in the distance, with an unidentifiable peak still capped in snow glinting in a trickle of sunlight.

Laura and I shared the cost of Godfrey’s admission to the zoo, and we wheeled him past enclosures of South American monkeys, orangutans and gorillas, and an area full of tunnels in the ground occupied by little prairie dogs. The air was sour with the scent of animal dung, and loud with the excited screams of children.

‘I brought my grandsons here once,’ said Godfrey, ‘before I went into the Old Vicarage. The boys would have been about eight and ten at the time.’

‘How old are they now?’ asked Laura. But he didn’t answer. ‘What are their names?’ It was probably the way she’d heard people talk to the elderly about their grandchildren, but with Godfrey it didn’t seem to work. ‘They’ll be grown up by now, I suppose.’

‘I suppose so,’ he said, but there was something in his tone that suggested he’d withdrawn from the conversation.

‘Don’t they come and see you?’ asked Laura.

Godfrey pointed. ‘I want to see the big cats. I think they’re over that side.’

Since it was the weekend, the zoo was full of visitors. Most of them were families — young couples with two or three children running around them, or older people struggling to keep up with their charges. Sometimes it was difficult to tell who was the most excited at the sight of a grinning chimp — the child or the grandparent. They were united in an ability to give themselves up to wonderment in a way the parents seemed to have lost.

‘Yes, Samuel came to see me three times,’ said Godfrey.

‘Had you known him for a long time?’

‘About a year.’

‘That’s not very long. I imagined you must have known him from years back. Weren’t you connected with his business?’

‘Me? Not likely. I worked as a tanker driver at the oil refinery up the road.’

‘Runcorn? So how did you meet Great-Uncle Samuel?’

‘He wrote to me, out of the blue. He said he was working on a family history project, and he’d traced my name.’

‘But surely you aren’t related to him?’

Godfrey started laughing and wheezing. ‘Look at your face! Did you think you’d found another long-lost relative? Sorry to disappoint. Or perhaps it isn’t a disappointment. Who’d want an old wreck like me in the family?’

I looked at Laura in perplexity as we passed the giraffe house with its towering doors like space shuttle hangars.

‘You must have some link to one of the ancestors he was writing about,’ she said, touching Godfrey gently on his emaciated arm.

‘Almost right, dear. Well done,’ he said, patting her hand. ‘Only it was more that he thought one of my ancestors was linked to one of his.’

With his hand still on Laura’s, he turned his face up to look at me. There was a twinkle in his eyes, as if he hadn’t enjoyed himself so much in a long time.

‘Would you like me to explain?’

‘That’s what we’ve come for,’ I said impatiently.

‘Now, now — allow me to have my fun. I’ll tell you all about it. Look, there are the big cats, over there. Tigers. I like tigers.’

We pushed him towards the big cat enclosures and got as close as we could to the bars. We watched for a while as a male Bengal tiger paced up and down, his muscles rolling smoothly in his shoulders under his golden skin.

We parked Godfrey’s wheelchair opposite the cage, where there was a bench for Laura and me to sit on. The old man seemed to slip into a reverie for a few moments as he watched the tiger. He was oblivious to the families passing in front of him, and had forgotten the two of us at his side.

‘Samuel Longden,’ he said eventually. He looked around vaguely, as if unsure where he was. ‘Was it Samuel?’

I wondered if we’d made a mistake. Perhaps Godfrey Wheeldon’s mind was too far gone for him to be any use. Though he had seemed lucid at the Old Vicarage, he was growing more vague by the minute. I had little experience with very old people, but I knew their rationality could fluctuate dramatically.

‘Do you remember why Samuel first came to see you, Godfrey?’

His eyes focused on me again. ‘Of course I remember. Do you think I’m ga-ga?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Some of the old biddies back at that place are completely senile, you know. Totally over the bridge. But I’m not like them.’

‘You had a link to one of his ancestors,’ said Laura quietly.

‘No, one of my ancestors was linked to one of his. You’re not listening properly. It all started with some letters.’

‘Samuel wrote to you?’

‘No, no. These were old letters. From some ancestor of Samuel’s to my great-great-great grandfather or something.’

‘Reuben Wheeldon,’ I said.

Godfrey clapped his hands in delight. ‘You know!’

‘Reuben Wheeldon was a friend of William Buckley, the resident engineer on the Ogley and Huddlesford Canal at the end of the 18th century.’

‘That’s right. William was an ancestor of Samuel’s, as I said.’

‘And of mine.’

‘Well, I managed to figure that out,’ said Godfrey scornfully. ‘Being as how your name’s Buckley too. I did tell you—’

‘You’re not ga-ga. Sorry, Godfrey.’

‘Samuel had tracked down this Reuben’s family, and eventually he came up with my name. He traced me here. I don’t know how he did it, but there are ways, aren’t there?’ He looked to us for confirmation, and I nodded. ‘He wanted to show me the letters.’

Godfrey began to cough. I was reminded of the car park attendant’s account of a man with a hacking cough he’d heard on the parking levels just before Samuel was killed, the same cough I’d heard myself that night in Castle Dyke. It was an appallingly small thing to go on. It might have been a heavy smoker like the attendant’s father, or a sufferer from a chronic condition like bronchitis or asthma. But it might just as easily have been a person with a bad cold, which had now passed off. The one bit of evidence I had could have been wiped out by a good night’s sleep and a Lemsip.

The tiger had continued to pace throughout our conversation. Where at first glance he’d seemed a powerful, noble animal, the more I looked at him, the more he diminished into a tired creature whose eyes contained a kind of hopeless longing.

‘He doesn’t like being caged either, does he?’ said Godfrey.

The old man became tired of talking and made no objection when we suggested taking him back to the Old Vicarage. But before we left the zoo, I got Laura and Godfrey together in front of the chimpanzee enclosure and took their photograph, promising to send Godfrey a copy when I’d had it printed. But it was Laura I really wanted a token of.

We went up to Godfrey’s room with him when we returned. I was about to write the visit off as a waste of time, but Godfrey had a couple of surprises for me. First, he pointed upwards with a bony finger.

‘Lift down that old suitcase from the top of the wardrobe,’ he said. ‘They keep on at me to throw it out, but it has all my little mementos in it. You have to keep something to remind you, or your brain goes completely. Some of the folks here have forgotten everything they ever knew. They sit propped in front of the telly all day. In their minds, they live in Coronation Street or in the audience of Blind Date. Pitiful.’

The suitcase was brown and battered, and when we sprang the catches, the lid flipped open in a twisted shape, as if it had been heavily trodden on.

‘There’s all sorts of stuff in there,’ said Godfrey eagerly. ‘I’ve got a whole collection of cigarette cards. One set was famous cricketers from the 1920s. Samuel was very interested in those.’

‘We haven’t got a lot of time,’ said Laura kindly.

He sighed. ‘Yes, I know. We old folk can be a bore. You’re interested in the letters, aren’t you?’

Laura and I looked at each other. ‘Letters from Samuel?’ I said.

‘No, no, from his ancestor.’

‘William Buckley.’

‘That’s him.’

Godfrey passed me a brown A4 envelope. There were three letters inside — letters from William Buckley to Reuben Wheeldon. I glanced at the dates, and saw they followed closely the two I already had.

‘I’d never heard of Reuben Wheeldon until Samuel mentioned him,’ said Godfrey. ‘He must be related to me, but it’s too late for me to care now.’

‘But the letters—’

‘Samuel gave them to me to look after. I suppose he must have had his reasons.’

I remembered how I’d got Godfrey’s address from Mrs Wentworth, and the package she wanted me to ask him about.

‘You sent something to Samuel recently,’ I said. ‘It arrived after his death and was delivered to his neighbour. A parcel of some kind?’

‘Oh, that.’ He smiled. ‘It doesn’t matter now. It was nothing.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Completely.’

Then there came a moment when Godfrey seemed to make a decision. It was as if we’d passed a test.

He said: ‘Did Samuel mention a box?’ He grinned when he saw me hesitate. ‘The canal owners’ box.’

‘Yes,’ I said, not sure whether I should tell him that I actually had it in my possession.

The old man nodded, tilting his head sideways as he looked at me. ‘Samuel was funny about that box. He told me it was important, but he wouldn’t say why. He could be very mysterious when he wanted to. Also, he made me keep these. But they’ll only get thrown away when I kick the bucket. Take them, will you?’

He pulled something from a pocket stitched into the lid of the suitcase. It was wrapped in a bit of newspaper, folded and sealed with tape.

‘You’re his family, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Family meant a lot to Samuel. With some people, friendship is more important. But with Samuel, it was the Buckleys above anything else. It was his family he always talked about, all the time. So I reckon you’re the one he wanted me to give these to. He must have trusted you.’

I took the object from him. Even through the paper, I could tell straightaway what it was. Godfrey had given me a set of keys.

Laura and I ate a late lunch at a pub near Chester. While we waited to be served, I pulled the tape of the little package Godfrey had given me and unfolded the newspaper. There were two keys on a ring. Much to my disappointment, they looked nothing like the two big iron keys that fitted the canal owners’ box. These were smaller and more modern, gold coloured keys like something made for a Yale door lock.

Laura watched me as I folded them back up and put them away.

‘Not what you expected?’ she said.

‘It’s hard to know what to expect any more.’

‘I know what you mean.’

I looked up at her in surprise. Her tone of voice was different, a suggestion of some underlying sadness that I hadn’t noticed before. I wondered what her story really was. All that stuff about walking the dog on Cannock Chase, her father’s successful business — it was all too superficial. I realised I didn’t know anything much about her at all. What reason did she give for being back in Staffordshire from her home in London? She didn’t, did she? She’d evaded the question.

The trouble was, it only made her more intriguing. I needed to find out more.

We were back in Lichfield before the end of the afternoon. I was wondering how to broach the subject of dinner and what we might do together in the evening, but Laura asked if we could call at Fosseway, and I postponed the subject.

At Fosseway, work on the lock was almost complete, and they were about to start clearing the earth and debris that filled the canal basin. Between the lock and the wharf had once stood a bridge, but it had been demolished many years before, leaving only the stumps of its buttresses, which now stood out from the undergrowth like broken teeth. Brickies were busy laying coping bricks on the wing walls of the bridge, while a new butyl membrane had been laid in the channel of the canal itself, and the towpath had been surfaced with crushed stone. The lock area was looking in good shape.

To one side, a tracked excavator and two massive six-tonne dumpers had arrived on the site, ready for the major job of tackling the basin and the wharf. The dumpers completely dwarfed the vehicle normally used by the restoration trust, and the excavator was even bigger. Equipment like this was expensive, but necessary. When the abandoned wharf began to re-emerge, it would all be worthwhile. Every bit of old brickwork was an encouragement, physical evidence of the past reappearing from its premature grave.

‘We’ve had a chap down here today claiming to be your cousin or something,’ said Andrew. ‘He was asking a lot of questions. Seemed a bit jumpy, though. Odd sort.’

‘Was he thin, with ginger hair, thinning on top?’

‘That’s him. A strange family you’ve got all of a sudden, Chris. Where are they all coming from?’

Laura looked at me quizzically.

‘Frank Chaplin,’ I said. ‘Not really my cousin. He’s Alison Chaplin’s son.’

‘What would he be doing down here?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Maybe he was looking for you, Chris. Perhaps he wants you to take him in for a while.’

‘He’ll be lucky.’

‘You don’t like him, then? What’s he done to you?’

I bit my lip, annoyed at her inquisitiveness. I didn’t mind when it concerned dead ancestors, but with living relatives it was a different matter. Even a step-cousin. There was no way I was going to drag out Frank Chaplin’s sordid story for Laura or anybody else.

She shrugged and turned to go back to the car. I was about to follow her when Andrew took my arm to hold me back.

‘Chris, have you heard about our big event tomorrow?’ he said.

‘What’s that?’

‘We’ve got our celebrity coming down for a visit. That’s why we’re working flat out today to make sure there’s something to show him.’

‘I didn’t know you had a celebrity.’

‘Yes, you did. You’ve seen him. You thought he was impressive. Our junior minister.’

‘What, Lindley Simpson?’

‘The man himself. He’s asked for a guided tour, so some of us will be down here tomorrow to meet him. It’ll be a bit of a photo opportunity, and the local press will be here. Why don’t you come along?’

‘I might do that.’

Andrew leaned closer. ‘Nice,’ he said, nodding his head towards Laura. ‘Are you taking her out somewhere?’

‘We’re just coming back from a day out in Cheshire actually,’ I said, pleased to have impressed him. ‘A place you might know — Ellesmere.’

‘I do know it — there’s a big waterways museum there.’

‘We didn’t go to the museum. We were visiting a friend of Samuel Longden’s.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Somebody as exciting as the Captain, was it?’

I laughed. ‘Interesting maybe. But I’d hardly call Godfrey Wheeldon exciting. He’s rather a lonely old man in a nursing home.’

‘Well, that might be the fate for all of us one day, Chris. Don’t keep her waiting, will you?’

I caught up with Laura and we walked back to the Escort, stepping to the side of the mud as far as possible.

‘Where to next, madam?’

‘Back to the George, I think. I could do with a shower and a change of clothes after all that mud and all those animals.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘But then, later on — I think there was some talk of dinner? Does the offer still stand?’

‘You bet it does.’